


How To Write An Autobiographical Novel

by Oh_Hey_Its



Category: Tegan and Sara (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/F, Mention of Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_Hey_Its/pseuds/Oh_Hey_Its
Summary: She has written for the first time in four years, an autobiographical piece of a much larger puzzle, very loosely based around the exact moment of its birth. Where can she possibly go from there?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This begged to be written tonight, and so it was. Might write a part 2 if there is any interest in that. 
> 
> Also-highly suggest reading the collection of essays by Alexander Chee by the same name. Excellent work. His essay, On Becoming An American Writer, in particular definitely had some influence in my writing here.

It’s been four years, but she can’t stop reliving the moment: the phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black. A whole life _,_ completely destroyed in a manner of an hour.

 

The notebook lies on the table before her, opened to the first page, paper so blindingly white. The pen in her hand mocks her, ink seemingly so eager to stain the page. Her mind wanders. She sets down the pen and takes a sip of her drink, cool cider settling down to warm her empty stomach. Another sip. Another.

 

She picks up the pen again, then sets it down. The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

The sun disappears behind a line of angry purple clouds. Rain, the thought soothing to her raging mind. She feels so empty.

 

The bell on the door rings and she glances lazily upwards to find a slightly younger woman, maybe late thirties to Sara’s early forties. Her clothing is all denim and flannel, her exposed skin tattooed with slightly faded but still vibrant splashes of ink. Her clothing is splattered with every color of paint imaginable. Intriguing. Sara’s never seen her here before.

 

She watches the woman order a coffee from Joey the barista, a man with an extensive collection of chuck tailors and a very bushy lumberjack beard. He and his husband own this place. Sara holds a strange affection for them both in her heart, despite exchanging nothing more than a few simple hellos past her daily orders of coffee chased by alcohol. Day drinking should be an Olympic sport, she muses. It takes great skill to pace yourself enough throughout the course of the afternoon so you know which stop to get off of on the bus at the end of the night.

 

The woman goes and sits at a table nearby, facing the window. Sara can see her face in the reflection of the glass, peering at it closely through the fringe of her hair. The sky grows darker and darker, lighting jumping from cloud to cloud in frantic bolts of light, before opening up in a great rush of water.

 

The woman reaches over into the messenger bag she’d slung onto the chair beside her and pulls out a notebook of her own and several pencils. An artist. Sara wonders who her muse might be, and suddenly the ache for her own rages through her like a searing blade: the phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

Two graves. That was all that was left of them, left of their family. She doesn’t go to visit them anymore, two wooden boxes beneath layer upon layer of earth and crowned with stone carved with who they were and the dates they arrived and then left again, back to the collective. Sara likes to think of them as two smiling angels, pillowed in soft fluffy white clouds, looking down on her, protecting her, always nearby. All it takes is one look outside at the storm howling to remind her, however, that such an idyllic possibility could not coexist with the reality of life and of death, a fact that is at once both upsetting and oddly reassuring.

 

Her mind drifts back to the pages before her, yet unwritten. She was once lauded as the most promising novelist of her generation, publishers fighting over her contract and planning months of book tours around the world. And then she met Emy and slowed down, bought a that lake house she’d always dreamed about, planned the beginnings of a family. That was before all of it was ripped away from her, and she was left with nothing but that big house that had once come with all of the promise of family dinners and romantic evenings by the lake and the many works yet to emerge from her brain to the paper, cocooned away in her study, until it was filled with nothing but ghosts and the echoes of what-if?

 

The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

The rain slows, Sara’s eyes wandering back to the woman, her back hunched over her notebook as her right hand moves madly across the page, coffee forgotten to the wayside in her passion. What must she do for a living? A professional artist? A school teacher? A lawyer? A poet?

 

This world so full of possibilities, and equally as many endings. Are we the masters of our own fates or simply puppets filled with a false sense of purpose? The sound of a phone ringing yanks Sara from these thoughts, and she watches with strange fascination as the woman stops her drawing to rifle anxiously through her bag, pulling out the device with an annoyed frown before answering.

 

Her voice is.... nice. Sara isn’t sure it’s what she expected it would sound like, unsure if she’d even given any consideration to it at all, in fact. It’s sweet, with an undertone of something lurking beneath; a glass of Bourbon in a darkly lit dive bar, neon lights glinting off the glass.

 

Groceries, a puppy, a woman named Lindsey. Fragments of a life filling Sara’s ears. The pen suddenly looks slightly more inviting than it has over these past years, the whiteness of the paper suddenly not quite so daunting.

 

The scene is set and suddenly the ink melts into the page, a sight for sore eyes. She writes of a slightly dingy café with walls lined with used books for sale, rain running down the glass windows facing the street, a woman sitting covered in dried paint from a day in her loft turned studio she occupies downtown, and the stranger sitting behind her with nothing left of herself but her pen and paper.

 

The woman says goodbye to whoever is on the other side of the call, dropping the device back into her bag and immediately plunging back into her work, her brow furrowed deeply as she draws deep plunging lines and shades in shadows and dark places.

 

Sara watches before drifting away, writing of two struggling artists, one full of promise, the other washed up and passed by. They orbit around each other like planets, pulled into the other’s gravitational pull by the stark contrast of their lives, a fascinating mirror-like experience. The leap in to one another, pulling and pushing and tearing until they are bare before one another and unsure of how exactly to word the thoughts that are passing through their skulls.

 

And then, just as quickly as they explode in their passion together like to suns, their fling cools and what once held them so close together weakens and fades away into the vast reaches of space. Adrift and forever reminiscing over what could have been. They find other lovers, but none meet them with the same fire, the same desperation. Until-

 

Her pen stills to a stop and she sets it down, closing the notebook, shocked by the force with which the words had flowed from her. An entire outline filled with the possibility of life, scribbled in an avalanche of letters, words, sentences. Four years of hopelessness, the hype after the publishing of her first novel diminishing until it had dried up and withered away completely, nothing but old news articles and clips chronicling her downfall into stagnancy from years ago remaining to document that time. And then suddenly.... something.

 

Sara looks up, desperate for another glimpse of the woman who sparked the wildfire that had taken over her mind for that short period, a half an hour? An hour? Her cider is warm. Was it longer?

 

The woman’s seat is empty, her coffee cold and forgotten on the table she had once occupied. The clouds have cleared, sunlight reflecting off of the puddles in the street, pedestrians reemerging to hurry this way or that, heads down watching their feet. It is getting late. She can see Joey eyeing her from his spot behind the bar.

 

She gets up to leave, packing her notebook and pen away into her backpack, strangely disappointed and disillusioned. The emptiness returns in a vast wave of anxiety. She has written for the first time in four years, an autobiographical piece of a much larger puzzle, very loosely based around the exact moment of its birth. Where can she possibly go from there? The muse a shadow once more.

 

She walks up the counter, reaching into her backpack and pulling out her wallet as Joey clears her tab for her. For the first time in a long time she doesn’t feel comfortably drunk or even slightly buzzed as she hands over a wad of bills to cover her drinks and the tip. She’s even more surprised when Joey hands her a piece of paper with her receipt.

 

She looks at it questionably, a name scribbled there in barely legible handwriting, a phone number, and on the other side, a sketch of... her?

 

“The lady that was in here during the storm left that with me. Asked me to give it to you when you left,” He shrugs. “Told her I would.”

 

Sara looks up at him, and then back down at the paper, confusion mixed with a strange swelling of confidence in her chest.

 

 _Tegan._ It suits her. Beneath, a small note. _Noticed you staring._  She crumples it slightly in her hand, palm sweaty, and shoves it deep into her pocket, wishing Joey a good evening and heading out the door, bell clinking as it always does as the door opens and closes. The sun is setting, a mixture of purples and pinks melding with the deep blue of the sky only visible after a storm. She breathes in the slightly muggy air, exhaling and reaching back down into her pocket to finger the paper within.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys wanted more so here is part 2. really appreciate the love and support for this so far!
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: brief mention of suicide

She sits back behind that grand, aged solid mahogany desk; an antique that had cost her far more than she would care to admit. A tool, arguably one of the most important, of her former trade. And yet it has remained lost in this time capsule of her home, yet another victim of a life once lived, now left to waste away into nothing.

 

What is the writer without a place to hide? A place to be vain within and upon as they attempt to construct whole universes within the confines of simple symbols? Her study had been just that; a cave, a hidden library, a palace of the mind. That desk had been, and still is, it’s crowning jewel on the far end of the room, placed strategically in front of the floor to ceiling wall of thick glass that looks out over the lake.

 

Sara hadn’t entered into this room since the Day: the phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

Her mind drifts to the woman, _Tegan,_ to the pencil drawing of Sara sitting there at that café table, looking up through her hair, pen held loosely between two fingers, relaxed but obviously deep in thought. Everything down to her collared shirt and slacks, to her oxfords, to the lines on her forehead. She’s never seen herself so clearly before. The realization of this is shocking and disconcerting.

 

She shakes her head in mounting frustration, it’s been hours and the thoughts that haunt her have been particularly insistent this evening, tension building in her bones and rushing through her body as her muscles sneakily begin to tighten to seemingly impossible levels of stiffness and her head pounds in time with the beating of her heart. Her breath catches in her throat, her eyes water, her teeth clench.

 

She tries to think back to the self-help book hidden beneath her bed, spine worn and cracked, pages dog-eared and highlighted, covered in panicked notes from her obsessive reading. How to break the cycle? How to-?

 

Slowly she comes down, crescent-shaped indents white in her palms. She takes several experimental breaths, filling her lungs completely before slowly allowing the air to escape, until she begins to feel lightheaded. Yes, ok. It’s over now.

 

Exhaustion comes to rest on her shoulders, pushing them down until she is hunched over that damned notebook, her own handwriting a testament to... what exactly? Hope, maybe? Or nothing more than a pipe-dream?

Sara reads over the lines, scratching out a few words here and there, running a hand through her hair, before standing. Enough torture for tonight. She stands, leaving everything where it lies, and pads out of the room silently on socked feet, hardwood floor creaking beneath her weight as she steps out into the dimly lit hall.

 

She eats leftovers from two nights ago, her friend Stacy taking her out to dinner once a week in an effort to pull her from this nest of denial she has cocooned herself in. Though, maybe denial is the wrong term. She knows that They are gone. Lack of acceptance, the inability to move on... those might be more applicable terms.

 

She eats quickly, standing in her kitchen, throwing away the styrofoam takeout container and pouring herself a large glass of wine before making her way into her living room and dropping gracelessly onto her couch. She flips the TV on and props her feet up on the coffee table, changing the station from the local news to a mindless sitcom, the laugh-track and self-deprecating jokes meld with the alcohol she is consuming to form a barrier between her intrusive thoughts and her inner mind. Peace, for the first time all day, artificial light shining from the screen onto her pale skin in the dark.

 

-

 

Sara wakes in the morning to painful cricks in her neck and back from falling asleep sitting up on the couch, a gasp caught in her teeth as she attempts to stretch her cramped muscles. God she’s getting old, she thinks, a cynical frown gracing her face at the thought for the briefest of moments. She stands up and makes her way into the kitchen to start a fresh pot of coffee, passing by picture frames facing downward on their shelves and large black sheets covering sections of the wall; too painful to look at, and yet impossible to take down.

 

She drinks it black, taking small sips as she leans against the counter, watching the sun rise. Another day, alone.

 

She showers, changing into fresh clothes, and walks back down the hall, eyes purposefully avoiding doors that haven’t been opened for fear of what might be released inside: the phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

She shudders, eyes scrunching shut, before opening them and sitting back down at her desk again, back to the novel she will probably never write. Her mind drifts, a rudderless boat with a sail full of wind. _Tegan._ Such a unique name. And confident, handing out her number the way she did, though not directly, Sara supposes.

 

She turns, reaching down and pulling open a desk drawer and reaching in to find that paper she’d been given. It’s been two days since it was handed over to her, and she hasn’t returned to the café since in fear that Tegan may or may not be there. Should she call? No... no. This Tegan deserves something more than what she could possibly provide; a whole not fractured pieces. It would be nothing more than an act of selfishness for her to appease her own curiosity and lonesomeness at the expense of this other woman.

 

And to betray Them... to move on would be goodbye. No! Forcefully she shoves the paper back where it came from, slamming it shut and returning angrily to reread the words on the page. She fumes at her weakness, her near betrayal of everything she has ever loved. The day she thrusts them aside for her own selfish wishes is the day she will finally garner up the nerve to end it like she’s wanted to every day since, despite knowing that deep down she’s too much of a coward to pull the trigger.

 

-

 

Another day passes, and another, and slowly she begins to develop a new routine. Avoidance of the café on the off chance that Tegan might be there, drinking all day in her study instead, staring at the outline she’d written up so frantically that day and has haphazardly edited since, cycling through phases of intense longing and grief followed by cautious optimism and half-hearted hope, until the intrusive thoughts flash and she’s spiraling back into the dark again.

 

It’s midafternoon, sun filtering through the blinds of her bedroom as she scrolls aimlessly through her social media, several empty bottles of beer littering her bedside table from the night before. She’s been hiding away in her home, staring at that damned outline, since that day at the café. The lack of stimulation is finally beginning to eat away at her limbs, leaving her agitated and filled with the growing need to get out and do something, anything.

 

If she had a car she would get in it and drive and not stop for anything, turning up the radio to that same old college radio station and rolling down all of the windows. But Emy was the one with the license, not her, always teasing Sara for her excellent knowledge of public transportation.

 

“What are you going to do when Emma is born?” She’d ask, and Sara would just shrug and admit that maybe it was time to finally learn, before getting busy and allowing the thought to fade away back into her mind. She has no plans to do so now.

 

So it’s a stop at the gas station up the street, fall wind mussing up her hair slightly, buying a six pack in a paper bag, before wandering onwards until she reaches the park several blocks over. It’s full of wide-trunked oak trees showering the earth beneath them with a slew of oranges, reds, and yellows. She finds a wooden bench and settles onto it, tucking her chin into her jacket for a moment in an effort to thwart the chill of the evening air.

 

She pulls the first beer of the night from the bag and takes a long sip before leaning it up against her leg, eyes drifting over to the nearby playground. A woman sits on the slide with a little boy between her legs, riding it down together with a cheer and into the man waiting at the bottom’s arms. The boy smiles and laughs as the man swings him around before setting him back down into a nearby stroller and offering the woman a tender kiss on the cheek.

 

She watches them walk away down the sidewalk, arm and arm, their son pushed before them, and chugs the rest of her beer before cracking open another. The sun sinks lower as she starts on her third, fourth, until it’s pitch black outside and a full moon begins to rise upward in the sky.

 

Alcohol blurring her senses and dulling her guilt, she allows herself to once more consider the phone number, the drawing, Tegan. She hasn’t been able to write anything substantial since their chance encounter in the café, and now that she’s had it back for the briefest of moments she can’t help but feel the urge to chase the feeling that comes with creation, of devotion, of construction, to once more emerge within her.

 

A relationship is completely out of the question, preposterous to consider she might find another in the wake of her love and their daughter, but maybe being close to this woman may once more bring back the muse. At the very least, she feels unexplainably compelled to try.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part III, hope you guys enjoy it!

She sits in the half-light, running her fingernail absentmindedly along the bare wood-grain of the table. Her cell phone lays innocently before her, it’s presence agitating her anxiety like a thorn stuck into her flesh just out of reach, the drawing Tegan had given her beside it. She’s been trying to work up the courage all afternoon to make the call, frustratingly sober and suddenly overwhelmed by the simplicity of the action.

 

Pick up the phone. Unlock it. Click on her contacts. Type in the number. Listen to it ring. And then... what? She’s afraid that if Tegan were to answer, the past four years might come pouring forth from her mouth and crush the other woman with the weight of it all. Grief and pain and confusion and the bottle. That is what she is, what she has to offer.

The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

In a panic she reaches out and types in the number before blanching once more and returning it back to the table. She sits back in her chair and stretches her legs out until nothing but her heels touches the floor, running her fingers through her shaggy mane of hair, and sighs deeply. Halfway there.

 

Back to the grain of the table, swirls and lines so fascinating in their asymmetry, heart pounding in her chest like a drum, hands shaking with the left-over adrenaline from the previous moment. Suddenly her phone lights up and begins to vibrate and she jumps, body tensing like a rod, eyes finding the screen: STACY. She curls her upper body over the surface of the table in relief. Thank god, only Stacy. She swipes her finger across the screen and places it up to her ear.

 

“Hello?” Her voice doesn’t tremble at all, an achievement she is quite proud to have accomplished.

 

“Hey Sara. You still good with dinner tonight?” Her friend’s voice reaches her ears and registers within her mind, it’s presence like a salve, putting out fires the other woman didn’t even know existed.

 

“Of course. 5?”

 

“Sounds great, see you then. Try to pace yourself today.”

 

“I haven’t had a drink all day.”

 

“Oh.... that’s awesome Sara!”

 

“I-yeah.”

 

“Keep it up, I’ll see you tonight.”

 

“See you.”

 

The call ends and then she’s back to nothing but herself and that damn phone and drawing. The silence is deafening.

 

Fuck this. She’s 42 she should be able to make a damn phone call. She glances over into the kitchen and can almost see her wife there, humming as she cooks them dinner, stomach growing more and more with each passing day. She’d turn around, spoon in her hand, and shake her head good-naturedly, “Sare, the sooner you do it the sooner you can stop working yourself up over it.”

 

She picks up the phone and hits call, holding her breath. It rings, once, twice, three times.

 

“This is Tegan.”

 

Her voice, and suddenly the panic rushes back full force and whatever she’d planned to say evaporates. She looks desperately back to the kitchen again for her wife, but is met with nothing but an empty room and cold stove, shadowy in the evening light.

 

“Um... hello?” Tegan’s voice again, voice slightly less confident now.

 

Say something! Anything!

 

“The drawing!” Sara blurts. “You drew me at the café last week. My name is Sara, Sara Clement.”

 

“Oh hey!” Tegan replies cheerfully. “I was beginning to think I had been a little too forward when I didn’t hear from you right away.”

 

“Yes well - sorry I just have been quite busy with work recently.” She wishes she could shut herself up, rewind and start over again. Could she sound any more boring right now?

 

And yet, Tegan doesn’t seem to mind. “No worries Sara, pleasure to finally speak. I’m Tegan Quin.”

 

Quin....the last name suits her.

 

“Thanks!” Tegan says. Oh shit.... did she say that out loud?

 

“I-uh, so I was wondering if you wanted to meet up, maybe get some coffee or something?” Sara asks, nerves spiking at the implication of what she’s just said.

 

“I’d love too! How about tomorrow, say, 10ish? Same place as last week?”

 

“Definitely... it’s a date.” Fuck. It’s a date? Now she’s totally given this Tegan the wrong idea! She looks up and Emy is back there in the kitchen, holding back her laughter at Sara’s awkwardness, shoulders shaking.

 

Sara ignores her pointedly. “I’ll see you then Tegan, have a good night.”

 

She hangs up the phone and drops it back onto the table with a labored sigh. Thank god that’s over.

 

“I still don’t know how you managed to score me with those terrible moves _._ ” Emy smirks at her, wiping her hands dry on a dish towel. Sara shakes her head, leaning back into her chair and folding her arms across her chest. She looks down at her hands in guilt.

 

“I’m not trying to score anyone.”

 

When she glances back over to her wife, she finds herself alone once more.

 

-

 

“So, tell me what’s going on.” Stacy questions, casually stirring an extra sugar packet into her iced tea.

 

Sara glances up from the coffee cradled between her palms, wide-eyed and wary. “How do you know-“

 

Stacy holds up her hand to silence her friend. “How long have I known you?”

 

“Fine.” Sara concedes. “I-I... I met someone last week at Joey’s.”

 

Stacy leans in, eyebrow raised. “Oh? Do tell.”

 

“Look it’s not like that!” Sara replies , immediately defensive, knowing she’s not being at all convincing. “Look, something about her returned a piece of me that’s been missing since- since that day. I haven’t written one thing in four years but that day she walked into the café last week, she sat near me suddenly it all flowed out of me like it used to. And I’ve been able to make no progress since. There’s just this vibe about her that I can’t explain, but it awakens a part of me that has been dead for a long time. I need to know if there is any way I can revive it myself.”

 

Stacy sits back in her seat as their waitress arrives at their table laden with plates, dropping one in front of each woman with a smile before bustling away.

 

“So you think this woman is going to help you write again?”

 

Sara balks slightly, unsure of the answer. “I need to know what she did to me that brought back the muse.”

  
A full circle. To bring back what had been ripped from her so painfully and swiftly that there was no time to stop and consider what was happening before it was over: The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

Stacy seems satisfied with her answer, though Sara knows that she will field far more questions soon, once the idea of this new woman, given that things go well tomorrow, settles into both of their lives.

-

 

The weight of the blankets are reassuring, their softness soothing, as she lays there beneath them, wide awake despite the late hour. A siren echoes off in the distance, growing softer and softer until it can no longer be heard, dust kicked up by the fan overhead flying in and out of the light spilling in from the hall. She hasn’t been able to sleep in total darkness since she’s been left here in this place alone, afraid that without it, nothing would lie between her and the ghosts threatening to smother her until she has no breath left in her lungs and no feeble remains of hope residing in her heart.

 

She knows deep down, if their roles were reversed and it was she in the ground and Emy turned recluse and depressed, she’d want her wife to pursue whatever she needed to in order for her to move on and become happy again. As much as she wants to believe she is going to meet with this Tegan tomorrow in search of friendship, things between them already seem to have unraveled into much more.

 

Tegan drew her, captured her in that specific moment in time, forever. An intimate act, one both strange and oddly endearing at once. The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

Back to that day. Always back to that day. She’s tortured by it, haunted by it, the memory like a million tiny cuts on her soul, an open wound with four years to fester. And yet, Tegan came and made her forget the agony of that loss for the hour it took to create the outline still sitting neglected on her desk in the study.

 

So many thoughts, jumbled and stacked, thrown into piles; painfully confusing and clear as day. Her head hurts, throbbing intensifying as she sits up and reaches for the sweet relief of the liquor on her bedside table.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still pondering whether or not I will continue to write, but this has been sitting on my laptop for over a month now and I find it to be a decent little ending to this particular work.

She downs the shot of whiskey with a grimace, heaving a sigh and washing the glass out in the sink. She needs to go now or she’ll be late. No more procrastinating.

 

The phone ringing, the pity of the man on the other end, the drive to the hospital, seeing her there so lifeless with all of those useless tubes and wires poking out of her mouth and cooling skin, the funeral all in black.

 

Fuck.

 

She takes a shaky breath, then another, another, before picking up her coat and stepping out onto the porch, locking the door behind her. It’s a ten minute hike up her driveway and another fifteen to the nearest bus stop. She checks her watch as she goes down the creaking steps leading from her deck; if her math is right, she should make it just in time for the next bus.

 

As she walks, she enjoys the breeze, lifting her head a little toward it as it kisses her face and lifts the ends of her hair. A beautiful morning, though most wouldn’t agree, what with the slight chill in the air and the blanket of clouds obscuring most of the sun’s rays. But she feels best in this weather, always struck by the sharp contrast of the dark green leaves covering the trees, shivering as the wind gusts against the slate grey above them. Fall is right around the corner, with its swirls of color and earlier sunsets. It was always Emy’s favorite season.

 

The bus ride is painful in comparison, her nerves rising in her throat like bile. It’s not too late to back out now, all she has to do is text Tegan and tell her she made a mistake, that she still loves her wife despite the unfathomable distance that now lies between them. She begins to reach into her pocket for her phone, when a hand stills her movement. She looks up slowly, and Emy is there again, sitting next to her in that beautiful sundress she used to wear when they’d picnic on the docks behind the house on those lazy summer afternoons, a knowing smile on her face.

 

“Now what do you think you’re doing?” She asks, reaching upwards to cup Sara’s face. Sara leans into the touch desperately, staring into her eyes, the dull ache in her heart flaring suddenly with want and desperation. She releases her grip on the phone, and as she does so, Emy fades away, leaving Sara feeling emptier than she has felt in a long time.

 

There is a handful of other people sitting scattered amongst the blue plastic seats. An old woman hunched over a small wire cart filled with plastic shopping bags, her sweater weighed down with pins and brooches. A construction worker in a reflective vest, his boots worn and creased with use, a Yankees ballcap in his hands. A young woman with a bright yellow scarf wrapped cheerfully around her neck, staring intently at her phone, pop music blasting from the headphones stuck in her ears.

 

It is in places like this where Sara finds humanity, and, at one time, inspiration; moments of in-between where she sees others at their most vulnerable, stuck inside their heads or their devices, minds racing with thoughts unbridled by their environment. There is something about the shared silence enveloping them above the low rumble of the engine that makes Sara want to cry. Her eyes well up, but none slip past her lashes before the sudden surge of emotion passes.

 

-

 

Joey gives her the usual nod of acknowledgment when she enters. Her eyes quickly scan the tables looking for Tegan, and finds her in the same seat she was in the first time she caught Sara’s eye. Stepping up to the counter, she makes a simple order of a house coffee, nervously glancing back to Tegan who thus far does not seem to have noticed she’s arrived.

 

Joey sets her steaming mug up on the counter, waving her off mutely as she tries to hand him a couple of bills. She thanks him quietly, heart thudding harder and harder in her chest as she carefully makes her way around the few other people in the café before reaching Tegan’s table and setting her mug down across from the woman.

 

Tegan is drawing again, but she quickly slams the notebook shut as soon as she realizes Sara has joined her. Their eyes meet and Sara can’t help but feel slightly more at ease at the shy smile Tegan offers her; she’s nervous too.

 

“Hey Sara,” She says, reaching over and dropping her notebook into the messenger bag by her feet. “What did you get?”

 

Sara takes a brief look down at the dark liquid resting in the mug cupped between her hands. “Oh just a house brew. What about you?”

 

Tegan smiles, taking a quick sip. “Green tea.”

 

They sit enveloped in an awkward silence for a moment, eyeing each other over the rims of their cups as they drink from their respective mugs.

 

“So Sara, tell me a little about yourself.” Tegan says, finally piercing the silence, setting down her drink and folding her hands in front of her on the table. Sara sets down her own, suddenly mute with panic at the question. The sudden urge to tell this woman everything, from the day she met Emy in college right up until that day Joey gave her that sketch, swells in her chest painfully. Somehow, she manages to rein it in, holding her breath as she tries to come up with something more palatable.

 

“I’m... an author.” She says. “And I love cats.”

 

Sara cringes hard internally. Could she sound anymore boring? Any more disinterested? And yet

Tegan seems to take it in stride. “Oh that’s neat!” She replies. “Have you been published?”

 

This is easier territory, something much less fraught with the dangerous shards of the past, and she allows herself to breathe again.

 

“Yes I-, one book a couple of years ago. Won a couple of awards and went on a big book tour. Nothing since then though. What about you?” She asks, quick to turn away from the inevitable follow-up of, why not?

 

“Well my passion is art, as I’m sure you might have been able to figure out,” she laughs. “I like to go to different places and find people to draw. I think often about how easy it is to forget that everyone else around us has lives just as complex as our own. I do my best to capture them but it can be really overwhelming to think about sometimes. But anyways that’s why I like to draw people I see that catch my eye. Sometimes I go home and use the drawing as a reference for paintings too.”

 

Sara listens, her brain a whirlwind of emotion. How has this woman somehow managed to describe the exact feeling she’d had in the bus that had made her feel so overcome? She had once, too, gleaned the inspiration from her writing in a similar manner, slipping the small notepad she’d always used to carry from her back pocket and quickly capturing whatever scene was occurring before her. Real people in real situations create novels, not the other way around. She’d filled upwards of fifty of them over the course of her career, until her wife left her alone, and she’d thrown them all into a box shoved deep in the back of her closet, never to be touched.

 

Suddenly she’s itching for one now, one that would allow her to capture this surreal moment in time she is currently existing in. Something in her yearns to take it, fold it up, and put it in her pocket so that she might relive it over and over and over again. She hasn’t felt an emotion other than sorrow and self-pity so strongly in years.

 

She shakes her head, trying to divert her thoughts before they peak and then inevitably spiral until she sees her dead wife again.

 

“So what about you? What do you do for a living?” She redirects. Tegan smiles, taking another quick sip of her tea before replying.

 

“Well, oddly enough I went to school for veterinary medicine. My plan was to open my own practice here in town, but my mother got sick a few months before I was to graduate. I had to drop out of school to take care of her. While she was sick I began drawing, more as a way to keep my mind off what was happening in front of me. There is nothing more painful that watching someone you love waste away in front of you and being able to do nothing.”

 

Tegan stops and frowns, looking down at the table, her hands fidgeting in her lap. Sara feels her stomach twist into a knot, finding herself thankful for the first time that at least Emy went fast, that there was no struggle, no pain past that brief chaotic moment of impact that killed her.

 

“Anyways, a-after she died I got a job at a grocery store part-time while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Suddenly being a vet wasn’t something I was passionate about anymore. I branched out and started painting and then got into some carving and metal work. I still work at the grocery, mainly just as a cashier, and do my art. It’s been over fifteen years now, and though I don’t have a lot of money or a lot of people buying what I create, I’m content. Sometimes I think ambition blinds people, always pushing to get a raise or promotion, and it completely rips away everything they might otherwise have pursued. I don’t want to end up that way, you know?”

 

-

 

It's late when Sara returns home; they’d stayed at the café right until it closed, Jeremy having to approach their table with an apologetic look on his face to inform them that he was closing up. Tegan had walked her to the bus station, so close their shoulders and hands kept brushing together, sparking little nervous jolts of warmth in Sara’s chest every time they did so.

 

When her bus finally pulled up with a loud hiss of its airbrakes, Tegan had given her a hug and an easy grin, promising to call later, before continuing her easy walk up the sidewalk. Sara had watched her go, a crooked smile on her face, and for the first time, didn’t think about Emy or the accident or the numbness of the alcohol waiting at home or the books she never wrote. Peace, briefly, for the first time in four years.


End file.
